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At least 13 dead after blast at college in Crimea

Posted at 6:27 AM, Oct 17, 2018
and last updated 2018-10-17 08:27:54-04
In this image made from video, showing the scene as emergency services load an injured person onto a truck, in Kerch, Crimea, Wednesday Oct. 17, 2018. An explosive device has killed several people and injured at least 50 others at a vocational college in Crimea Wednesday in what Russian officials have called a possible terrorist attack. (Kerch FM News via AP) 

MOSCOW (AP) – Russia’s top investigative agency says an explosive device rigged with metal fragments has killed 13 people at a college in Crimea.

Top Russian official in Crimea says the attacker was a student who has killed himself.

The Russian Investigative Committee’s spokeswoman, Svetlana Petrenko, said the device went off Wednesday in the canteen of a vocational college in the Black Sea city of Kerch. She said most of the victims were students and more than 50 people were injured as a result of the explosion.

Yet Russian news media, however, reported that at least some of the victims died in an attack by an unidentified gunman or gunmen. Russian officials wouldn’t confirm those reports.

Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters that officials are looking into a possible terrorist attack. He did not elaborate.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that triggered Western sanctions.

(Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)